I was forced to cultivate immortality when I just wanted to lie down

Chapter 135 Past Events

Although they avenged their mother, the two brothers in the Tiger Temple did not feel relieved at all.

Sun Erzhuang had endured the shock and torment of the past few days, and the pressure and grievance in his heart burst out all of a sudden.

The fat man knelt in front of Guan Huapo's coffin, holding the edge of the coffin lid with his hands, and cried for a long time.

Guan Dazhuang witnessed the injuries and tears welled up in his tiger eyes.

Xu Qing sighed, holding three incense sticks in his hand and inserted them in front of the coffin.

Three incense sticks are lit during the wake, representing heaven, earth, and man. It is said that as long as the incense is kept burning all night, the deceased and the living will be able to transcend the barriers of yin and yang, heaven and earth, and feel each other's thoughts.

In addition, Xu Qing lit a white candle on each side of the coffin to ensure that the candles were lit day and night, which meant to guide and illuminate the soul of the deceased.

As soon as Xu Qing finished doing all this, Guan Huapo's figure appeared again, but she did not speak. She just stared at the two brothers, and finally looked at Guan Xiaohu's body in the hall.

The old lady looked gloomy, and then she walked out of the incense hall with stiff and mechanical steps.

The donkey rope on the beam of the incense hall seemed to have a spirit. The rope fell to the ground with a snap. The round rope loop looked like a snake's head, and the rope body looked like a snake's body. At this time, the rope with the rope head raised swam to the old lady.

Guan Huapo paused, and her mouth seemed to contain glutinous rice cakes, so her words were sticky and murmurous. Guan Dazhuang and Sun Erzhuang could not hear clearly what she said. However, Xu Qing, who could understand the sounds of birds and beasts and the words of gods and ghosts, showed a thoughtful expression.

As soon as Guan Huapo finished speaking, the rope that followed her out let out a mournful donkey bray, then it turned around and rustled its way to Sun Erzhuang.

The rope jumped up and the noose just landed on his shoulder.

Sun Erzhuang was so scared that his soul almost jumped out of his body. He put a rope around his neck and hanged himself. Was he going to let him live?
"That's something your mother left for you. It won't harm you, so don't be afraid."

Xu Qing spoke at the right time.

When Fatty Sun heard this, he stopped waving his hand that was about to throw away the rope.

"mother"

It was then that Sun Erzhuang remembered that his mother's soul was still walking out. He quickly turned his head and saw that Guan Huapo had already walked to the eaves of the temple gate.

The old lady seemed to hear Sun Erzhuang's voice, but she just stopped for a moment, and then stepped resolutely into the rain.

There were lightning and thunder outside the temple, and the pale lightning illuminated the entire Tiger Temple.

Xu Qing squinted his eyes and saw colorful rain falling on Guan Huapo's transparent soul. The next moment, a burst of white smoke rose up, and Guan Huapo's soul disappeared from its original place.

"mother!"

Sun Erzhuang ran out of the hall, stumbling with his fat body.

He reached out his hands to feel around, but he could catch nothing but rain.

He looked up at the sky and the cold rain hit his face, blurring his eyes so that he couldn't open them. He didn't know whether it was rain or tears.

The big man in yellow walked under the eaves and looked up at the sky.

In the incense hall, Xu Qing, who was always considerate, did not want to disturb the two brothers. He silently put Guan Xiaohu's body into the box, and then took out the funeral clothes and shoes, rouge, makeup, flowers and other things, and began to prepare Guan Huapo's funeral makeup.

There are slight differences in the burial makeup of male and female corpses.

It is said that men and women are different. Boys are born rough, while girls are born delicate. Otherwise, there would not be the saying that boys should be raised in poverty and girls should be raised in wealth.

Girls love to dress up, so even if a woman is old and dead, she will be given a good makeup when she is put into the coffin, so that she can leave beautifully and cleanly.

After finishing their makeup, Sun Erzhuang and the big man in yellow returned to the coffin.

Xu Qing clasped his hands together, held the old lady's hand, and said to the two of them, "I am going to recite a sutra for the old lady to be reborn. You two can calm your minds and pray for her together."

Upon hearing this, Sun Erzhuang sat down on the straw mat, imitated Xu Qing, put his hands together, and muttered something, which must have been some incantations that Guan Huapo had taught him before her death.

The eight-foot-tall burly man next to him followed suit.

At this time, there were two white candles burning in front of the coffin. Guan Dazhuang was sitting in front of the candle on the right, next to Sun Erzhuang, with his hands clasped together, like a Vajra Arhat, his face full of piety.

The candlelight was dim, and on the wall of the incense hall behind him, which was painted with mottled murals, there was the shadow of a chubby fat man and the shadow of a burly strong man.

The sturdy man's shadow vaguely resembled a tiger.

Xu Qingze sat quietly beside the coffin, with his eyes closed and without saying a word.

At this time, the wind and rain were still blowing outside the temple, and the pages of the Sutra of Salvation in Xu Qing's mind began to turn as if blown by the wind.

Lao Taishan, Guanmen Village.

"Cuckoo~"

A childish laughter full of milk and milk appeared outside the farmer's house.

"Ouch! Who left the child here?"

In a foggy village in the early morning, a middle-aged witch picked up a baby who was abandoned at her doorstep.

"You child, you were abandoned by your parents, why are you still so happy?"

The baby in the cradle was still smiling at the old witch.

"It's a girl, she's so pretty, why don't you want her?"

The witch couldn't find the abandoned person, so she carried the baby girl into her own yard.

This baby girl is Guan Huapo.

Ever since she had a child to take care of, the fortune teller often tells fortunes for people. As long as she earns money, she will use it to support the girl she adopted.

Whenever Guan Huapo asked about her life experience, the witch would say that she was her biological mother. But when Guan Huapo asked who her father was, the witch would always hesitate and could not answer.

When Guan Huapo saw that the witch always took her to the Tiger Temple, she said crisply: "I know, my father is the Tiger Lord, a big tiger."

The witch then smiled and said, "If the tiger is your father, then your mother must be a tigress."

When she was little, Guan Huapo didn't understand anything, so she replied, "My mother is a tigress, so I am the little tiger!"

Time passed like flowing water, and the little Guan Huapo gradually grew into a young lady, while the witch had a head full of silver hair and her mouth was wrinkled and sunken. When she spoke, it was like chewing glutinous rice cakes, sticky and unclear.

At this time, Guan Huapo took on the burden of life. In addition to seeing patients and treating illnesses every day, she also learned needlework and did sewing business to supplement the family income.

Sometimes the old witch was glad that she had found Guan Huapo, but she also felt guilty.
Guan Huapo saw it all but never asked any questions.

Many years passed, and when the witch was about to die, Guan Huapo was guarding her bed. At this time, the old witch, who was in her last moments of life, suddenly told her daughter something.

"My dear, I'm sorry. Actually, I'm not your biological mother."

Guan Huapo held the witch's hand and whispered, "I know. In fact, I have always known that I am different from ordinary people. I still remember the way my mother brought me home."

The witch was stunned, her eyes a little blurry. Slowly, she looked back at Guan Huapo and said in a trembling voice, "I did something wrong. When I was holding you and looking for your family, I saw your parents who abandoned you at the village entrance. However, I was old and had no children, so..."

Guan Huapo shuddered, stunned for a moment, then stretched out her hand, wiped her tears, and said with a smile, "They lost me. Even if mother caught up with them, they probably wouldn't want me. They might have thrown me somewhere else. If that were the case, I might not have met mother, and I wouldn't be alive today."

"In my heart, mother is my real mother."

After the old witch died, Guan Huapo became the new witch in Guanmen Village.

One day, Guan Huapo was sitting at the door of her house with a sewing basket beside her. However, while she was mending clothes, a low growl of a wild beast suddenly came from the other end of the field diagonally opposite.

Guan Huapo put down her needle and thread, looked up, and saw a huge tiger with hanging eyes and a white forehead appear on the low wall surrounding the fields.

An ordinary person would have run for his life or hidden in the house by now, but when Guan Huapo saw the big beast approaching her, she did not move at all.

Guan Huapo didn't speak until the tiger limped to her with one paw in its hand.

"You are injured and can't catch prey, so you want to come and eat me?" The tiger whimpered softly, holding its injured front paw and rubbing the sewing basket in front of it.

Seeing the tiger lying on the ground, looking harmless, Guan Huapo said with some amusement, "Since it's not looking to fill its stomach, then it must be in trouble and looking for help."

The tiger whimpered again and raised its paw.

Seeing that the tiger seemed to have some human nature, Guan Huapo was no longer afraid. She moved closer and took a look.

I saw an inch-long oak spike on the huge tiger's paw, which was deeply embedded in the tiger's palm.

"Big Tiger, bear with the pain. I'll use a needle to pick out the thorn for you."

After saying this, Guan Huapo took out a large needle for sewing the quilt from the sewing basket and picked out the oak nail.

"Wait here. I have some blood charcoal in my room. It's the best for stopping bleeding and relieving pain."

Soon, Guan Huapo took a small medicine jar filled with blood charcoal and applied medicine to the big insect waiting quietly outside the door, and then bandaged its bleeding wound with a cloth strip.

After doing all this, Guan Huapo smiled and waved her hand: "Go, but be more careful next time and don't let these thorns prick you again."

On the second day after sending the tiger away, Guan Huapo went to the Mountain God Temple to worship as usual. However, when she opened the gate, she found a rabbit corpse at the door.

Guan Huapo looked around and saw the tiger she had rescued yesterday on the earthen wall in the distance.

When the other party saw Guan Huapo coming, he growled, then jumped off the earthen wall and disappeared into the fields.

In the days that followed, the tiger would bring some millet, musk deer, pheasants and other prey every now and then, until a month later, it stopped appearing.

Guan Huapo thought that the tiger had repaid its kindness and the matter was completely settled.

But she never expected that one day two years later, Guan Huapo, who was resting, heard the roar of a tiger coming from outside the courtyard gate.

She quickly put on her clothes and when she opened the gate, she saw a tigress with two cubs squatting on the earthen wall, looking at her.

Guan Huapo was confused until she heard the cries of a tiger cub coming from the dry canal not far from the door.

When a tiger gives birth to three cubs, one of them is a tiger cub. This cub is not abandoned because the mother tiger wants to abandon it, but because her milk is not enough to feed it, so it has to be abandoned.

But this tigress was different. She recognized Guan Huapo and knew that she had no children, so she sent her own cub, which she could not raise, to her.

The tigress seemed to think she was quite generous, and proudly raised her head towards Guan Huapo on the earthen wall.

When Guan Huapo saw this scene, she immediately remembered that she was abandoned by her parents.

She is different from the fortune teller. Now that the young tiger's biological mother is right in front of her, she will not sit idly by.

Guan Huapo carried the little tiger and chased the tigress.

But as a woman, how could she catch up with the big beast in the mountains?

Seeing Guan Huapo chasing after her with her children in her arms, the tigress opened her mouth wide, grabbed her two children, and ran into the forest without looking back.

Guan Huapo was both angry and anxious. She didn't even have a child, so how could she take care of a cub, let alone a tiger that only ate meat.

But the mother tiger has left, and if no one takes care of it, the cub will definitely not survive.

With no other options, Guan Huapo bought a lactating ewe and began to feed the tiger cub.

Once girls reach a certain age, most of them will develop maternal instincts. This is a natural law and human instinct.

Guan Huapo has no husband or children, but now that she has this little tiger, she really treats it as her own child.

The little tiger was born thin, so she named him Da Zhuang, which followed her surname.

During this period, the tigress delivered prey several times, but she never took the initiative to meet the little tiger. Every time she put the prey at the door, called out twice, and then disappeared.

Although Guan Huapo wanted to catch the tigress in the act, she never saw the tigress once.

As time went by, Guan Dazhuang grew stronger and stronger, just like his name. Guan Huapo didn't dare to keep him in Guanmen Village anymore, so she went to the Tiger Temple 20 miles away and let Dazhuang act as a tiger.

In this way, even if someone saw the big tiger nearby, there would be an explanation to deal with it, that is, it was the mountain king appearing, which might be able to cover up the problem.

Days passed like this, and when Guan Dazhuang grew up, Guan Huapo used the methods taught by the witch to lead Guan Dazhuang on the path of practicing Taoism.

Guan Dazhuang was raised by others and was naturally intelligent. Within two years, he could speak, and within five or six years, he could appear in the world with the help of incense.

A few years later, one day, Guan Huapo was tidying up incense, candles and offerings in the Mountain God Temple when she suddenly heard a baby crying outside the temple.

Confused, she went to the outside of the Tiger Temple, and saw a worn bamboo basket at the entrance of the temple. In the basket was a swaddling cloth, and inside the swaddling cloth was a chubby baby.

Guan Huapo was shocked and looked around hurriedly, but she couldn't find the person who abandoned the child.

If it were an ordinary person, there would probably be nothing he could do at this time, but Guan Huapo was different.

She hurriedly lit a stick of incense, and soon a gust of wind blew, and a strong golden-eyed tiger appeared beside her.

"Why did godmother call me?" The golden-eyed tiger spoke in human language.

Guan Huapo said briefly that when Guan Dazhuang heard about the abandoned child, he seemed to feel the same way.

"Don't worry, Godmother. I can already smell the scent of strangers. Wait until I catch them and interrogate them."

"Don't hurt anyone's life."

"I can spare it."

When Guan Dazhuang left, Guan Huapo looked down at the swaddling clothes in the basket.

Although she had held Guan Dazhuang in his arms when he was a child, he was a tiger after all, not a child.

Now Guan Huapo wanted to pick up the child, but she was at a loss as to where to start. It was not until the child reached out his hand to her that she came to her senses.

She carefully picked up the baby, and strangely enough, the baby calmed down and stopped crying as soon as it was in her arms.

Not long after, another gust of wind blew, and it turned out to be Guan Dazhuang rushing back.

"How is it? Have you found the child's parents?"

Guan Dazhuang was silent for a moment before he spoke: "I was a step too late. The child's parents had already fallen into the ravine and died."

Guan Huapo was troubled when she heard this.

"What should we do? Without parents, where will this child go from here?"

At this time, Guan Dazhuang suddenly said: "Although I am taking care of Godmother, it is not as convenient as human offspring. Otherwise, Godmother should adopt him."

Guan Huapo originally had this intention, but she was reluctant to say it out loud because of Guan Dazhuang's face. Now that her adopted son has spoken, she is naturally willing to adopt the child.

He carried the baby in the swaddling clothes into the temple, and a golden-eyed tiger followed closely behind him, holding a bamboo basket in its mouth.

When Guan Huapo came back to the incense hall and looked after the baby, she found a longevity lock on the baby's neck with the word "Sun" engraved on it.
The revolving lantern had basically completed what Xu Qing wanted to know.

When he saw this, he understood why Guan Dazhuang was different from Guan Xiaohu, because the former had not suffered too much. The tigress did not abandon her child so much as gave it to her "sister", but Guan Xiaohu was different.

The little tiger had truly experienced being abused and abandoned by its mother.

What happened to Guan Huapo afterwards was basically the same as what Guan Dazhuang said, with not much difference.

Xu Qing also saw the scene of Guan Xiaohu attacking Guan Huapo. At that time, Guan Huapo was sitting under a tree in the yard, with the sewing basket still next to her. However, she did not dodge, but said something with some self-blame.

"It's my godmother who didn't teach you well, and it's me who's incompetent as a mother."

(End of this chapter)